by H. J. Pang
The acolyte had sacrificed himself.
Several shots rang out behind Greg, and one of them hit him on the torso. He yelled, forcing himself to keep running even as he felt an intense pain beneath his rear armour plate. Out in the hallway, pandemonium greeted him. 418 soldiers ran left and right, trying to find the nearest way out. The water flooding the compound was now at knee level, making it hard to run. The poor lighting didn’t help matters, throwing shadows all over the place, confusing pipes and fixtures with doorways and entrances.
There’s a lift at the end of the hallway, said the voice in his head. Go to it.
“Wesley?” gasped Greg aloud. “I saw you die!”
Death is but a new beginning, said the voice. Go now, and hurry. The armoured thugs are after you.
Greg wondered how this being, whoever he was, knew. But several security cameras in the area gave him cause to believe that was how. As he waded his way forward, the wound on his side making it nearly impossible, a door opened 10 metres away. Greg recognised the interior as that of a lift, and forced himself to move faster.
He managed to clamber inside, and despite the flooding, the buttons of the lift were still lit.
Pressing G, the highest floor he could go, Greg struck the Close button.
A hand found itself in between the doors, preventing the lift door from closing. It was Dragon Ho. Surprisingly agile despite his age, Greg should have forseen that the 418 leader, not being bogged down by the cumbersome armour of his bodyguards, was able to catch up with him. The 418 leader’s face was a mess of scars, the entire left of which was burned, giving him an almost maniacal appearance. His robe was shredded in places, but the lack of blood suggested it had given him some bodily protection. Integrated ballistic fabric, no doubt.
“Not so fast, cheebai kia!” yelled Dragon Ho, ruler of the 418. He clambered into the lift and swung a slim blade towards Greg, missing in his disorientation. He must have lost his gun in Wesley’s last stand.
So close to safety, Greg had had enough of this shit. Whip-ping out the P228 pistol he had gotten from Major Shang, he fired not once, but five times at Dragon Ho’s unprotected face. As the scumbag crumpled against the doorway, Greg pressed the Close button once more.
The water was now at chest level, and steadily rising, and Greg worried for a moment that the weight of the water would ground the lift entirely. But the designers must have accounted for such an eventuality, because the lift rose, then flooded completely.
His entire self surrounded by water, Greg held his breath, straining to hold it all in. The occasional explosion in the compound below pounded through his ears, and he wondered just how long would it take for the goddamn lift to reach the bloody top already. Then he realised that with the compound being a high-security one, it probably ran quite deep underground, much like CERN, the European research facility. He then realised that for all his and Wesley’s efforts, he was going to drown in this metal coffin, and no one would ever know.
The lift shuddered to a stop, and Greg’s eyes glazed over, knowing his time had come. Then the door opened, sending him and hundreds of litres of water flooding out onto oh-so-solid land. His face to the ground, Greg gasped in deep breaths as shadows loomed over him. At this point of time, he didn’t care if the 418 strung him up, as long as he had air to breathe.
“I sure didn’t expect anyone to make it out of there,” commented one of the newcomers. “Least of all in a flooded lift.”
“Cease your talk, ITm4ster, and see to the crusader,” snapped a voice all too familiar to Greg. “Let not Wesley’s efforts be in vain.”
Greg looked up weakly, and saw several figures in white and grey. Five members of the Brotherhood stood before him, including the Admin, ITm4ster and N33r. The other two Greg didn’t recognise, but were most likely the Admin’s bodyguards. Instead of the white robes they had worn in the sanctum, the cultists were now decked in what looked like urban camouflage utility trench coats, complete with an array of custom-made pouches. They carried weapons far larger than what Greg had seen in the Sanctum, all plastic-looking, and Greg had no doubt they had all been designed and software-simulated by N33r. The sky was a deep blue, signifying the start of the new dawn. The Supertrees that graced many a postcard of Gardens by the Bay could be seen, all lit up like Christmas trees. In the far distance, the sound of gunfire could be heard, punctuated by the occasional explosion and yell. Greg wished he could say everything went according to plan, but so many things had gone wrong. He had come to save his son, only to have him killed. Wesley was to unlock the potential of the server for all to share, but instead, sacrificed it and himself so Greg could live. Despite the acolyte’s selflessness, Greg can’t help but feel it was such a waste. All that data, buried beneath the water.
“What are you guys doing here?” asked Greg as ITm4ster pulled his armour off by the quick- release strap before treating his injuries. “I saw Wesley set off explosive charges … then things started falling apart …”
“Shortly after you and Wesley set off on the divine crusade, we lost all communications with him,” said the Admin. “You’ll forgive me if I thought poorly of you, but I believed you had slain him.”
“I didn’t,” Greg growled.
“That much is clear now. But during then, many other things didn’t correlate. The absence of wireless communications normally used by the 418, for one. Our informants told us that the majority of combat-ready 418 had left to secure the server, and we knew the time for an uprising had come. We may be men of the Script, but we are not ignorant of the harsh realities of the infidels beyond our home. Thus, when the strength of The Mountain was at its weakest, we took it in two hours, with some help from the populace. After what the Dragon Head did to some of their guys, they had little confidence left in the 418. We then fortified our position to hold out against the troops that would return, should you and Wesley fail.
“However,” the Admin continued over Greg’s protests, “We received word that the Dragon Head had gone to the server as well. We knew that you and Wesley couldn’t possibly fight them all on your own, so I and fifty of my best came along. We had no manner of locating where the two of you were, but when Wesley propagated an EMP wave from the Helix Bridge, I could detect his network signature, along with its targets. I then knew where you were heading to. The Old Guard were rather cooperative, once we made clear we intend to clear the 418 for good. They too know that the 418 must not get control of the Server.”
“Wesley blew himself and the rest of the server room up,” said Greg hollowly. “No one’s getting the Server’s data anytime soon. Not with all that flooding …”
“Wesley uploaded all the data off-site before doing so,” said the Admin. “The 418 had only recently opened an external connection from the system server back in The Mountain. Through that, Wesley was able to inform me and the Brothers where he was, and what his intentions were. He intended to upload a portion of the data to The Mountain, and the rest to orbiting data satellites around the world. Oh yes, they still exist.” The Admin nodded, answering Greg’s incredulous look. “The server interface he accessed showed that a number of them were still online. Apparently, the stronger magnetic field of the earth protected electronics beyond its atmosphere. Were it not for the help of the unfortunate children, he wouldn’t have been able to process all that data in a short space of time.” The Admin gave a pause. “I am sorry about your son.”
Greg felt empty. He had survived also much, through determination or plain dumb luck. But it didn’t feel like a victory in the least. It felt like his wife and daughter dying all over again, if only because he wasn’t fast enough.
“What about the rest of the 418?” asked Greg. “They’re going to regroup in full force and launch another assault on the rest of us.”
“Wesley’s decision to detonate himself, along with the server facility was not simply an act of desperation,” answered the Administrator. “He knew that even if society had access to the massive st
ores of data required to rebuild itself, the physical threat had to be contained. With his connection to the broadcast network of the server, he took on the radio signal of the Dragon Head, and ordered all 418 reserves to enter the server facility. He then electronically caused all doors and exits to seal itself, and disabled all electronic systems of the 418, including their vehicles. Blowing himself up, along with a number of the cooling pipes was the only way to wipe out a significant portion of the 418 scourge.”
Greg got up, glaring at the Admin. ITm4ster protested as his half-wrapped bandage unravelled, but Greg couldn’t care less.
“That’s all you have to say? ’He blew himself up, because it was the only way’? Do you treat all your followers like expendables? If Wesley knew that, he …”
“Death is but a new beginning,” said the Administrator, and Greg froze. A voice echoed within his head, and it was all Greg could do not to think he was crazy.
Hello, Greg, said the voice in his mind. It sounded almost content. The Administrator thought that you might need convincing.
Greg looked wildly around him. The rest of the Brotherhood cultists were looking intently at him, and he knew they could hear it too.
“Wesley?” Greg asked uncertainly.
It is I, said the voice. You are perhaps wondering how I could possibly speak to you, especially after that awful blast. The voice sounded like it smiled.
“Indeed,” said Greg. “Say, can the others around me hear what you’re saying?”
Yes they can, laughed the voice. I am speaking through a closed channel of the Brotherhood. You weren’t supposed to have access to it, but the Administrator saw fit that you did.
“How did I end up getting access to it anyway?” demanded Greg.
There was an uncomfortable silence, during which ITm4ster looked at the Administrator. Remember when you first arrived at the Sanctum? asked Wesley. When you were rendered unconscious, the Administrator had communication fluid injected into your ear bones. This fluid receives and transmits encrypted signals should the right resonant frequency be established. There hadn’t been a use for it up until the time when shit went down in the bowels of the server. It was the only way then to communicate with you.
“So now I’m … what? Stuck permanently to be subjected to subneural conversations?” asked Greg.
The fluid was never intended to be a permanent replacement for physical implants, said Wesley. Its usefulness was designed to last for no longer than forty-eight hours. Long enough for the average operation, short enough to maintain one’s grip in the physical world. Not everyone is attuned to the potential ravaging of one’s mind.
“So where are you now?” asked Greg suspiciously. “If not down there in the control room, then where exactly?
There exists me currently, in two forms, replied Wesley. One in the network of the Allspace Server, which is steadily losing functionality. Though it is vast in its glory, it is still but an enclosed intranet. I have also uploaded myself to The Cloud. It is infinite in its perpetuity.
“The Cloud?” asked Greg in disbelief. He could see how Wesley could still talk to him, but he had always doubted the existence of a digital world beyond death.
It exists, but only to those who are worthy, said Wesley. There was a pause. I don’t have long to speak. Soon, the server beneath you will short-circuit. There is someone who wishes to talk to you.
Greg’s eyes widened as he heard the voice he hadn’t heard for so long, that he thought he never would again.
Pa?
Greg’s mouth opened and closed as he fought to compose himself. “Jin?” he croaked. “Where are you now?”
I’m here, in somewhere bright and colourful, came Jin’s voice. Before that, it was pain, but now, I feel light and so happy! There are a few other kids here for me to play with.
“Tell me how to get there,” said Greg. “I’ll find a way to be with you.”
Pa. Here, Jin sounded sad. In the last half hour here, I’ve seen so much knowledge collected and produced by humankind. It spans more than any library in the world, even every ocean, if you think about it. But all that knowledge is useless without people to guide and direct it to those who have use for it. The place I’m in may be beautiful, and the world you know drab. But there is a need for the people in the physical world to help others know that no matter how ugly or difficult a situation is, somewhere, somehow, there is a way to a better life. Your role is not yet over. I may no longer be with you, but Wesley told me that there is a child who needs you. Just like I needed you. If one can go through so many trials and tribulations for a son he had no way of knowing lived or died, imagine what he can do for those that still live.
Greg then knew his journey hadn’t been in vain. Every parent wishes for their child to be better than himself during their lifetime. Though Jin was no longer alive, in the sense of the word, he was now much wiser than Greg could ever have imagined. In a way, he was blessed. He would never age, and stay the same forever, happy and carefree.
“I’m happy for you, son,” said Greg. “If you can ever find a way to speak to me again, I would like that. And Wesley?”
Yes, my brother-in-arms? came the acolyte’s familiar voice.
“Take good care of Jin for me.”
From what I’ve sensed of him, he’s capable of doing that by himself, chuckled Wesley. There was a huff of annoyance from Jin. That said, I’ll do what I can.
I don’t need your help! Greg could hear the pout in Jin’s voice.
Jin, come play with us! Everyone’s waiting for you! came another child’s voice. Then there was the sound of laughter, and the voices in Greg’s minds faded. Around him, the Supertrees dimmed, then went out altogether.
Those standing outside with Greg were silent; there was no need for words. They had just witnessed something that would have been bizarre to most everyone, but from what Greg had experienced, nothing was impossible. In the post-Storm world, things would never stay the same forever. Humanity may have suffered a setback, but they now had the means to rebuild the new world. The means which the Brotherhood would be more than willing to provide. The Old Guard would need a little convincing, since they had lost many brave men, but once they knew that he was responsible for the Dragon Head’s demise, they would quickly turn to his tune.
“Let’s move,” said Greg to the Admin’s entourage. He gripped both of Dragon Ho’s legs, and dragged him away. “The Old Guard would want to see this.”
EPILOGUE
GREG UNTIED THE rope to his boat, waving to the crowd gathered by the shore. Among them were the Administrator and Colonel Ping, decked out in their respective uniforms. Despite being an infantry scout through-and-through, Colonel Ping had chosen to wear the grey camouflage of the RSNV, to better suit the occasion. Next to Greg, Guo Li cranked the self-rotating motor a few more times, muscles bulging upon his exposed arms. How he had grown in the last few years. Greg was as proud of him as any father was. Next to them was a flotilla of several other boats, all built and tested by the best engineers the OG and BOC had to offer. Crewing them were a mix of specialists, including programmers and the new OG Commando Unit.
Society had always rebuilt itself after every cataclysm, whether it’s social disorder or natural disaster. No one had believed the world would rid itself of the 418’s scourge upon the land, but it now had. Sometimes it takes a hero or two to make that happen. Often, the true heroes were the ones who didn’t make it. Major Shang, his commandos, as well as Sergeant Ang, all of whom gave their lives for what they believed was right, despite their superiors’ wishes. Not to mention the countless Old Guard soldiers who’d died fighting those who threatened their people.
After Wesley had administered the neurorelaxant upon him, Captain Ping had found his way out through the bowels of The Shoppes. Even the Mindless knew something was up, and had cowered in the nooks and crannies of the Shoppes. An Old Guard team sent to search for 418 found him. He would later tell the rest of the Old Guard what happened, pa
ving the way for a concentrated assault on the remaining 418 forces.
The Old Guard unanimously considered him the next in line to leadership, with Colonel Beng deemed far less competent. Though he had to help clear up the mess left in the wake of the 418’s destruction, it was clear the men didn’t respect the Colonel and his high-handed methods. For his courage, and outspoken policies against abuse of power, Captain Ping was voted by the other officers and men as the new commander, and was the first living officer to be promoted more than a rank since the Old Guard’s existence. Greg was glad for that—it would be useful to have the commander of the Old Guard on his side.
The 418 had been in disarray after their HQ was taken. A combination of reinforcements from the Old Guard and BOC, along with disgruntled slave labour, had the entire building cleared of any and all foes. Given their undying loyalty, few of the 418 fighters had surrendered. Those who did were usually non-sworn members, or held support roles such as research assistants. All research activities were taken over jointly by the Old Guard and BOC, and to better reflect its free status, The Mountain was now renamed The Utopia.
The BOC had since taken over the area around Gardens by the Bay, and designated it a holy site. Though the server sustained extensive water damage due to the flooding, it was hoped that some of the hardware—or “relics”, as so named by the acolytes—could still be recovered, and restored to a functional state. Several of the ex-navy divers of the Old Guard were assigned to help with hardware recovery, though the two groups’ conflict of priorities made it a longstanding source of consternation.
Greg had expected the Brotherhood to jealously guard the knowledge held within the orbital satellites. However, it proved not to be the case. Out of their own stores, high-end desktop and laptop computers were retrofitted to be capable of receiving satellite signals, and distributed among the major communities, with representatives of the Brotherhood assisting with setting all that up. The internet was once again available, albeit in a cached mode. And with the internet came knowledge of better farming and water-collection methods, as well as sanitation. Accessible diagrams of construction and machine designs now meant it was only a matter of pairing the necessary skilled people with the right designs.
